Chapter 104: Balancing (1/2)
Translator: Strivon
Within the room of Area A, Cat Eyes spat out a nervous breath, forcing herself to shift her attention away from the mess within the encrypted channel. But when her gaze changed directions within the room, it still fell onto the two people that were continuing to communicate with each other. She still felt that the big quarrel within the encrypted channel was a much happier place to be.
When the entire situation was mixed into a rotten mess by the stormy vortex, the eye of the storm centered on certain people. These people were still completely unaware.
Disregard Fairchild—he was one of the most powerful ability users in Xia City. He could enter the ranks of Extraordinary.
As for the other person, just why!?
Before this thought could finish, Cat Eyes saw Luo Nan unconsciously take a step forward, closing the distance between him and Fairchild to be within three steps. They were so close that it seemed that they could reach out and touch each other… Actually, Luo Nan really did reach out with his hand.
His hand waved out at an angle and it looked like it grazed the top of Fairchild's head. Fairchild did not bat an eye. Instead, he maintained that completely serious and focused look.
Luo Nan withdrew his hand and spread it out. "This is waste heat you have here."
"I agree with this description."
"It’s waste heat. How can you control it?"
"I am precisely facing this issue."
"My issue with my fleshly body requires a dangerous procedure to resolve it but it can still be done in theory. Your issue is fundamentally based on an error with logic. How can you possibly resolve it?"
Cat Eyes could not help but caress her forehead. She felt that the train of thoughts between Luo Nan and Fairchild had already entered a level that outsiders could not understand. And their words were trending deeper and deeper into abstraction.
Luo Nan did not about care what others thought. Everything was fine as long as he and the person he was facing—Fairchild—understood as well.
Ever since Luo Nan had wanted to expound on whether or not Formatting Theory was systematic, Luo Nan had tried to use words to substitute the exchange on the mental plane. He still had some influence from it and he was convinced that he was best suited to this sort of communication method.
Luo Nan and Fairchild revolved around the core that was the structure and order of the mental and material planes. Continuously deeper discussions led to the rules of the mental plane. The order of the material plane. The interference and influences between the two. Body and soul merging and tempo changing. And more…
Many things were involved and Luo Nan only understood half of it. Either that or he knew how things were but not why they were so. However, no matter what sort of thoughts and questions he tossed out, Fairchild was able to understand and respond. Fairchild used the near-perfect Shield of Truth state to give the most direct examples.
Likewise, Fairchild's self-explanatory state was able to draw resonance and insight within Luo Nan. Luo Nan stood on the theoretical foundation of Formatting Theory. He combined self-practice with the exquisite demonstration he observed on that night between Rui Wen and Jack. He was able to put forth things that could make Fairchild's eyes glisten, like soul configuration, body and soul merging, soul breathing, and so on.
Luo Nan’s muddled and chaotic thoughts gradually became clarified through these course of events. The most notable clarification was in the field of mutual interference between the material and mental planes. Some things were apparently right but actually wrong, so they were rooted out completely. His mind was clear, unprecedentedly clear.
In comparison, the pressure his body was facing was really nothing.
However, as these two clarified their reasonings, an unseen vague contradiction appeared.
The contradiction mainly occurred with Fairchild.
When this Ears of Truth saw the ‘My heart's a prison’ Format and the advantages of soul breathing, he gave great praise to the orderliness that they brought to the mental plane. However, no matter how much he wanted to achieve these things, they were not something that could be achieved by observation alone.
The structure of Fairchild's body and soul could be seen as a nuclear reactor. It was a powerful structural system that had its foundation mainly established on the material plane, therefore its main area of effect would also lie on the material plane. This was reflected in his powerful physique and extraordinary levels of defensive ability.
This was a powerful structural system. It possessed high degrees of order and was relatively sealed off. The mutual effects between the body and the soul would find it hard to break free from their respective positions, no matter the side. Because this was so, Fairchild was able to obtain the powerful force of a strong fleshly body and simultaneously have a limitation on the development on the mental plane.
The storm he formed on the mental plane was only the recycling of the spillover heat of his nuclear reactor.
Luo Nan was able to place himself on par with Fairchild but he could take out Rui Wen as an example and do a comparison.
Rui Wen's body and soul merging pursued the seamless shifting between multiple planes. She could rapidly jump between the different frequencies of the material and the mental. She possessed adaptability, improvisation, and explosive power that were inconceivable.
Fairchild was fixed to a single level, a single frequency. He took his structure and refined it to the peak, slowly expanding its range of influence.
Luo Nan was able to take note of the merits and drawbacks of these two different methods. He could only say that if Rui Wen and Fairchild were to swap places last Sunday night, the particle cannon that was fired at the artificial lake in the park may not have had an effect.
However, rewind a little bit more. If Fairchild was in the situation of being sent into unconsciousness by the controlling pulse to his brain, it would have been very hard for him to wake up by himself. He could only get trampled on.
Of course, if one wanted to make Fairchild go unconscious with the pulse, it would be better and more straightforward to just roast his brain.
From Luo Nan's level of understanding, Fairchild had enough power. His nuclear reactor, the structural system that was formed from the secret cultivation technique—the Shield of Truth that came from the Order of Justice—had already exceeded all imagination in terms of firmness and stability.
However, this was far from perfect in Fairchild's perspective. "The goal of cultivation is to explore the Truth. We need to observe the world in a more comprehensive manner to discover the deeply hidden marvels of the world, to make the order of the world definite… Nothing is more important than observation. Observation is how humanity understands the world. Giving order to the world is the most crucial ability!
"Currently, I have already reached the limits of what I can probe at the level I can access. My current structural system is limiting my observational ability. I am unable to increase the depth of it and I am having a hard time making progress. This is completely unacceptable…"
Then do you know that there is someone staring at your steel-like body with a salivating mouth?
Luo Nan understood what Fairchild was pursuing but Luo Nan did not believe that he was headed in the right direction. "The reason why your observation is limited is because of your structural system itself… I call it the high degree of order with Self-Format. Right now, your Self-Format is constantly influencing and disturbing your external surroundings.
"Your Self-Format absorbs negative entropy, causing an increase in entropy to appear with the Heaven and Earth Format of the external world and generating waste heat. It is normal for there to be disorder and a lack of tempo. The fact that you are able to make use of your format isn't really proof that you're able to cast free from this format and start anew. It just shows that your expansion of the controlling range of your Self-Format endlessly warps the Heaven and Earth Format, the format of the world. Through this, you influence the mental plane from the material plane. As for me, I do the complete opposite. I influence the material plane from the mental plane."
From this perspective, Cat Eyes' judgment that Fairchild was an All-Rounder type was incorrect. Fairchild intrinsically was still on the material plane. He was a physical enhancement type from head to tail. However, he was powerful to the peak. He was able to form an astonishing interfering force on the mental plane.
Luo Nan thought of when he had understood soul breathing and had a dramatic increase in soul strength. He was able to interfere from the mental plane to the material plane to form an aureola, a shadow image, and bizarre forms. This too ought to be a manifestation of waste heat.